Rob Thomas, Ph.D.

Email: 

Phone: 

(415) 338-1159

Title: 

Lecturer

Department: 

Humanities DepartmentCollege of Liberal and Creative Arts

Building: 

Humanities (HUM)

HUM
416

Office Hours (Additional Info): 

Online

Website: 

At SF State Since: 

1998 Photo below: Motorcycle on a garage door, SOMA, taken by Dr. Thomas

Bio: 

bike graffiti soma

 

My courses are broadly concerned with the relationship between contemporary culture and the history of Western philosophy, with particular emphasis on theories of the image, affect, porn studies, cinema, modernism/modernity, San Francisco, gender, sexuality, critical race theory, and political economy. 

 

I am the author of User's Guide to Pornography (forthcoming from Zero Books). I studied with Giorgio Agamben in the seminars on The Time that Remains (Il tempo che resta). My dissertation, Broken: Thought-Images of Life in the State of Exception (2005), explored affect in relation to the state of exception, with emphasis on cinema, apocalypse, modernism/modernity, sexuality and spectacle. 

 

I hold a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the Program in Philosophy, Literature, and the Theory of Criticism (PLC) at the State University of New York at Binghamton (2005), a MA in Philosophy from the State University of New York at Binghamton (2004), a MA in Humanities from San Francisco State University (2000) and a BA in Liberal Arts (with emphasis in critical social theory) from The Evergreen State College (1997).

 

Expired Polaroid Photo of Dr. Thomas by Todd Duane Miller © 2015

Bike Graffiti in SOMA Photo by Dr. Thomas © 2013

 

Website: https://theorist.io

Teaching Portfolio: https://theorist.io

 

Spring 2020 Courses

HUM HUM 376-03 / HUM 376-04 San Francisco: Biography of a City (online)

HUM 390-01 Images of Eroticism (online)

 

Fall 2019 Courses

HUM 390-01 Images of Eroticism, HUM-01/HUM-03 (online)

HUM 225-01 Values in American Life (online)

HUM 220 Values and Culture T/T 2:00 - 3:15 PM, HUM 582

 

Spring 2019 Courses

HUM 376-01/376-02 San Francisco: Biography of a City (online)

HUM 390-01 Images of Eroticism (online)

HUM 425 Thought and Image T/TH 9:30 – 10:45 am

 

Fall 2018 Courses

HUM 376-01 San Francisco: Biography of a City (online)

HUM 390-01 / 390-02  Images of Eroticism (online)

HUM 425 Thought and Image (online)

 

Summer 2018 Courses

HUM 376-01 San Francisco: Biography of a City (online)

HUM 390 Images of Eroticism (online)

 

Spring 2018 Courses

HUM 425 Thought and Image

HUM 390 Images of Eroticism (online)